As the days continue to dwindle away, one last major thing remains to be decided... Who will be Kato's Pediatrician? It has become the task that neither of us want to own. We both have said, "Fine then, I will take care of it...." at least a couple of times with still no success. Last week I finally broke down and made a single phone call and scheduled appointments with two doctors in the same office. Really, two months of procrastination for a single phone call... pathetic... We met with the doctors Thursday and Friday and they were both amazing! They seem to know their stuff and almost encourage off-hour calls. That was my biggest worry, finding someone who would be able to put up with my crazy questions at 3AM.
The big question for us was next, circumcision. To snip or not to snip??? We had already made up our mind prior to discussing the topic with the doctors to have Kato circumcised, but we wanted to make sure the doctors were willing and able to perform the operation. After a good discussion on the topic, our questions were answered and our concerns with capability were gone. He said that he was so comfortable with the procedure that he was happy to have mom and/or dad in the room during the operation. He even said that I could perform the operation if I wanted... That took about 0.000001 seconds to answer, HELL NO!! I am pretty sure I am going to have a lifetime of decisions and moments to screw this whole dad thing up, no way I am going to volunteer for something I can push off on a trained professional. The thought is slightly intriguing though, I have to admit... kind of like a dare... what if I could do it and say to him later that I performed the operation... then I thought for a second, what if my dad stopped by tomorrow and told me he did my circumcision, how would I respond? I am pretty sure I would be pissed to know he risked something that important on a dare or a hunch. I mean not even a night at a Holiday Inn Express guarantee success for something like that.
We are now less than a month away from meeting the little guy and it seems like forever. It is nice to know that all the major decisions are made and final preparations complete. Time to sit back and wait... Did I mention I really suck at waiting...
Love you, Kato
Dad
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Oh poor guy!! :( Why do you want to circ your baby boy???? is he okay???
ReplyDeletePlease don't circumcise your baby, protect him from such a unnecessary procedure. The risks vs. benefits cancel each other out, becoming a purely cosmetic procedure. Pls Pls protect ur precious son...
You can check out this website for more info:
www.circinfosite.comAnd also this video featuring Dr. Dean Edell:
Circumcision DecisionI know you want the best for your son, therefore I really suggest to find more info regarding infant circumcision and research more about it. Today's Parents are saying No to circumcision.
Blessings...
Enith
I'm sure that last commenter was well meaning, but you did say you've already made your decision for Kato. You have certainly already done the research on this, and know it's a cosmetic and cultural thing, not done for medical or health reasons. Most guys want their son to match, right? It's a family tradition now. So what if they don't do it in Europe or Canada or most other places. It's one fewer decision he'll need to make for himself, and that's good. He'll have plenty of other important decisions to make.
ReplyDeleteThat said, the circumcision rate has been falling steadily, but it's still around 50/50 nationwide, so he shouldn't feel like the odd one out.
People will tell you about nerve endings, sensitivity, and functions of the foreskin but again I'm sure you know about all that, since you've already decided.
Yes, there are risks to any surgery, but sometimes the risks are worth it.
Best of luck for everything to go very very well!
enithhernandez: we have actually done plenty of research regarding circumcision. we know the pros and we know the cons. i appreciate your feedback, but i feel that this is a decision best left to our family. both of us are intelligent people and would not take a decision lightly.
ReplyDeletejosh: we appreciate your feedback as well. thank you for the well wishes.
I wonder what your baby would choose for himself? Maybe he'll agree and jump up on the table to get his pee pee cut off, but I don't think that's likely.
ReplyDeletecalice: as i said previously, this is a decision for our family. while it may not be your choice, please respect that people have other opinions that may not match your own. and as "midwife" is listed as your occupation, i hope you approach your patients with more of an open-mind, rather than giving them your biased opinion.
ReplyDeletethis blog was created as a way for our families to share our pregnancy, not for online lurkers to tout their views. forgive me for having such a strong response, but this is our child and our decision. and i promise that no one wants better for him than his own parents.
Hi j and a,
ReplyDeleteIf your decision is still against leaving your boy intact, you really haven't finished your research, intellectual or emotional. Once you do, you will see that family penis cosmetics is a political/emotional issue that can be handled so the father and baby boy both benefit - and it isn’t simply loss for the baby and family finances. The pediatrician you spoke to had a responsibility to tell you the whole story and he obviously did not. Perhaps when you have completed the research you will fill him in on his omissions.
I am well meaning too. I mean well for the family as a whole. As a nurse working in perinatality I have counseled/re-educated thousands on this issue. 95% + realize the 'decision' is not decision but a form of age-inequality in which everyone overrides the baby’s rights. When the parents go against their baby’s right, cut and then realize what they’ve done they suffer remorse and shame for the rest of their lives, something to be avoided.
There is a better way, a way for everyone to be whole. Re-open your curiosity and research foreskin restoration on the internet. Over 100,000 men in the US and elsewhere are doing it tho since 90% of men worldwide are intact it’s becoming an American institution, a very constructive, positive one.
To share a look-alike penis image, why not restore your foreskin instead of cutting k. It is far less expensive than circumcision, and has benefits for you instead of loss for him.
The 20,000-30,000 nerve endings of the foreskin lead back and forth from every nerve pathway in the body to the brain, so the whole body, including the intellect is deprived of pleasure and satisfaction when the foreskin is cut off. Men notice how their whole body feels different after just a few weeks of foreskin restoration, and no wonder, they should! Suddenly the 20,000 – 40,000 thousand nerves are coming back to life, and the whole body experiences it. Orgasm changes into a rainbow experience known only to those with either original or ‘facsimile’ foreskins!
There are good decisions and bad decisions. Circumcision is one of the worst 'decisions' because it is not for the baby’s health it is for the father’s denial, so he doesn’t have to acknowledge reality and see what he has lost when he sees his baby’s foreskin.
Foreskin restoration takes care of this denial and much more. It ensures continuing happy sex as people in their 20s and 30s emerge into middle age and beyond. Circumcision causes continuing desensitization of the penis. Women go through menopause and their sexual tissues become more sensitive and delicate. Sex becomes uncomfortable, then painful, then impossible. Divorce often becomes the decision then, usually with great disappointment, anger and sorrow.
rest of explanation to follow.......
Very best regards,
Maurene White R.N.
continued.....
ReplyDeleteForeskin restoration ensures continuing comfortable sex, often the connection that keeps men and women together. Of course if intact, comfortable happy sex prevents these problems from ever beginning
I’m sure by researching the internet and your own mindset you’ll come to different conclusions than feeling compelled to cut your little boy, burdening him with the pain -and loss because of your look-like-dad desire To cause him to lose his foreskin in terrible, untenable pain, just to be made to look like you, I guarantee you, would never be his ‘decision’. He will love looking just like himself. My two sons certainly did.
Recently a friend r, about 50, who I counseled to do foreskin restoration a few months ago, told me that for the first time in over 20 years, m, his wife of 25+ years, invited him into bed for sex instead of trying to avoid it. This is becoming a very common story. Foreskin restoration in their 20s or 30s would have given them decades of pleasure they wish they could have had. If his foreskin had never been cut off, there would never have been a problem to begin with, they both have always lovee each other very much.
I wish you this kind of happiness throughout your lives and when you think about it, I’m sure you would wish it for your baby boy as I wish it for you.
You can change your decision re cutting your son. You can never change the cut for him. All this information will be much more prominent and available when k is an adolescent and adult. He will not thank you for what you call ‘your decision’: cutting him. His penis is his belonging, for him to manage and he will tell you so.
Recently in Oregon a 14 year old whose father wanted to cut him to change him to Judaeism against the mother's wishes was protected by law to state his own wishes. In court he said he wanted to stay intact. Children understand the value of the foreskin, much earlier than age 14. From the moment their hand and foreskin meet they know amazement and delight.
The foreskin is one of the most powerful organs on the body - for research look up J R Taylor British Journal of Urology Feb '96 and Jan '99 + M Sorrels et al March '07 also British Journal of Urology. The authors are Canadian and American - journals in North America refused to publish them, circumcision is too entrenched a multi billion $$$$ industry in NA.
Perhaps by now you understand that this ‘decision’ you’ve been told is yours is really interference, indeed quite a violation of your baby boy’s rights, and that you have been persuaded by outside forces, none beneficial to you.
That's why you think you have a ‘decision’, the peds fella wants into your pocket and your son’s diapers. He knows circ is only loss, but the $$ is too good not to try to fool you into thinking the ‘decision’ for look alike/circumcision is yours. I hope you won’t allow him to defraud you into paying him to violate you little boy’s body.
Very best regards to you and yours,
Maurene White R.N.
http://adornable.blogspot.com/2009/05/my-precious-baby-boy.html
ReplyDeleteA circumcision decision? What, is it 1970? The circumcision fad is dying. If you make the right choice and leave your boy as he is born, the chances of him actually wanting a cut up penis are slim to none. And if he does, he can choose all the detials for himself as with any other form of extreme body modification or cosmetic surgery.
ReplyDeleteRemember, the doctor gets paid per procedure and he doesn't have to live with the result. His advice on the subject is suspect at best. I doubt he even knows that the United States is the only country to push circumcision for non-religious reasons and that all other first world nations (including Israel) state that circumcision has no medical benefit.
I have a five year old boy. The kid is healthy as can be. The doctors tried pushing circumcision, warning of all sorts of problems. All of it is Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. FUD. Nonsense.
BTW, if my father informed me that he performed my circumcision, my first (uncontrollable) reaction would be to punch him as hard as I possibly could.
ReplyDeletehttp://adornable.blogspot.com/2009/05/my-precious-baby-boy.html
ReplyDeleteas noted above this parent REGRETTED circumcising but now it is too late. Don't we all want our children to have more than we did? Why not start out with MORE penis rather than less?
j and a thanks for responding... I know you are intelligent adults and know that you guys will do the best for your family, that's why I posted those links. Did you click on them? Please I will appreciate it, I am BEGGING you to please read them and watch the short video, it will only take a moment I promise. Please remember that your son is also part of the family, and you need to be able to know if he will like to be counted in this huge decision. We constantly forget what these babies want when it comes to circumcision. Many men, as adults, are mad that it was done to them w/o consent because there is so much information available these days regarding circumcision and they always wonder why it would have been if they would have given the choice to experience a whole/complete body. Remember, circumcision is an amputation of a healthy body part of baby's genitals, imagine the pain and suffering this baby will experience during and after the procedure? Not to mention the 20,000 nerve endings that are lost with circumcision. Genitals are the most sensitive part of the human body, and cutting them right after birth, will cause him excruciating pain and harm. They won't remember it, but their brain will never forget it. Pls DO more research, on your OWN... without the help of doctors that are the only ones who are benefiting from this horrific procedure :(
ReplyDeleteBlessings...
If you have done some research then you should know that NO medical organization in the entire world recommends routine infant circumcision. Please check out my blog to learn about the common myths about circumcision and intact male. The circ rate in the US is 57% and falling rapidly as parents are able to get more information about this harmful, non-therapeutic surgery. I strongly advise you do a little more research before making this permanent, life-altering decision for your son. By not circing him you give HIM the choice, a choice that EVERY child deserves to make regardless of age, sex, culture, religion, nationality or race.
ReplyDeleteHere are a couple more links that can help you and don't forget to checkout my blog!
www.intactamerica.org
http://www.nocirc.org/publish/
http://www.cirp.org/pages/parents/
Cheers...
In response to B. Maurene White---
ReplyDeleteAs a Registered Nurse, I am ashamed that someone who shares my profession is such an imbecile. Your assertation that more than 95% of your patients have changed their minds regarding circumcision tells me one of three things:
1. You are a liar and are over-exaggerating the “converts.”
2. You are a bully who simply refuses to allow your patients to make an informed decision.
3. 95% of your patients are ill-informed, ignorant and incapable of making an informed decision, so they listen to someone who inserts their over-zealous opinion into the lives of others.
To suggest that j is circumcising his own son so that he does not feel left out is ludicrous at best. And your discussion regarding the 20-40,000 nerve endings is simply uneducated and ignorant. There is no research that links intellect or sexual pleasure to circumcision or an intact foreskin. None. The sources you cite state that the structure and function of the foreskin are “not completely elucidated” and “poorly understood” (Taylor). Sorrels’ article indeed states that the foreskin is more sensitive to light touch, but there is a plethora of research that shows no link at all between sensitivity to light touch and sexual satisfaction. Your implication that having an uncircumcised partner somehow curtails the changes that occur during menopause is outrageous. Again, there is no research to back that up. Vaginal dryness and tissue changes are a result of decreasing estrogen levels, not the presence of foreskin in a woman’s partner.
As a nurse, I am appalled at your errant knowledge, but as a woman, the vacuous views you hold are disturbing. It is pitiful to think that a relationship is based on sex. If divorce occurs because sex just isn’t great anymore, it is certainly not disappointing or sorrowful. If that is all the marriage is based on, divorce should be rejoiced. Sexual pleasure if the sum of the emotional, psychological and physical aspects of the couple. If sex is bad, it is usually because of a lack of attention to the other areas, not because of foreskin. If sex becomes uncomfortable and painful for a woman yet her partner continues because his penis is insensitive, then her partner is a degenerate lout and she should have left him long ago. A little KY jelly goes a long way for a perimenopausal woman; a patient and attentive partner goes even further.
I won’t even address your claim that circumcision is part of a multi-billion dollar scheme on the part of the American health care system. Please. Perhaps cancer treatment is a scam from the pharma giants. And there is no obesity epidemic in America; that is a hoax for all of those registered dieticians and bariatric folks hoping to make a buck.
Lastly, your “decision” to use quotation marks every time you mention j and a’s decision is ridiculous. Whether or not you agree, it is, in fact their decision. To minimize a difficult choice by implying that it is not a real decision is disrespectful and ignorant. But based on everything else you posted, I am not surprised.